Methods and devices for determination of heart arrhythmia type

Abstract

The type of arrhythmia in a patient's heart can be determined by monitoring the atrial and ventricular rate of the heart; detecting a pathological initial ventricular and / or atrial rate during a first time period; if a pathological initial rate is detected, then administering at least one antiarrhythmic cardioactive drug over a short second time period; detecting the heart's response to the administered drug(s), as by comparing the responsive ventricular and atrial rates with the initial ventricular and atrial rates, respectively, within a third time period; and determining the type of atrial or ventricular arrhythmia from the presence or absence of differences, and the type of differences, between the responsive atrial and ventricular rates compared with the initial atrial and ventricular rates. The invention further involves a related device which includes an implantable cardiac device (10) and a drug delivery device (20).

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims priority under 35 USC §119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61 / 474,755 filed Apr. 13, 2011, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The invention relates to a method for determining a type of arrhythmia in a patient's heart, and a related device including an implantable cardiac device, for example a pacemaker, defibrillator or cardioverter.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]An arrhythmia is an abnormal heart rhythm. One example of an arrhythmia is a tachyarrythmia, wherein the heart beats at an abnormally fast rate. With atrial tachycardia, the atria of the heart beats abnormally fast; likewise, with ventricular tachycardia, the ventricles of the heart beat abnormally fast. Though often unpleasant for the patient, an atrial tachycardia is typically not fatal. However, some tachycardia, particularly ventricular tachycardia, can trigger ventricular fibrillation whe...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention proposes a method and device for quickly and accurately identifying the type of arrhythmias in the heart, using a small amount of a drug called adenosine. This drug can be administered quickly and has minimal impact on the heart's behavior or patient health. The method can be used to determine the type of arrhythmia and initiate appropriate therapy, improving the effectiveness of treatment. Adenosine can also be used to discriminate between different types of arrhythmias. Overall, this approach provides a reliable and efficient tool for identifying the type of arrhythmias and optimizing treatment.

Problems solved by technology

However, some tachycardia, particularly ventricular tachycardia, can trigger ventricular fibrillation wherein the heart beats chaotically resulting in little or no net flow of blood from the heart to the brain and organs.

Ventricular fibrillation, if not terminated, may be fatal.

Defibrillation shocks, while highly effective at arresting the fibrillation, may cause considerable patient discomfort and should therefore only be applied if they are really necessary.

Although other criteria—such as sudden onset, stability, AV consistency, QRS morphology, etc. of a cardiac signal—can be used to facilitate the classification, the sensitivity and specificity of these methods are not sufficiently high.

Further, these methods require substantial time to make a distinction between different arrhythmia types.

A disadvantage of the device of US 2004 / 0267321 A1 is that it is slow to determine arrhythmia, and stabilization of antiarrhythmic drug delivery also takes time.

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